Halo 4

Halo 4, 343i’s first venture into Microsoft’s wildly successful, billion-dollar franchise, came out a week after Assassin’s Creed III, and it could not have come sooner.  I was more than willing to take a break from the glitch-ridden and nonsensical monotony that was most of Assassin’s Creed III to happily welcome Halo 4 into my home.

I was worried with the direction Halo games were going.  Halo: Reach, Halo creator/developer Bungie’s final contribution to the franchise, was just that: a reach.  The game lacked the sense of wonder and mystery that other Halo games had done so well.  It had canon problems as well, going against previously written novels that outlined this particular part of Halo lore.  And the gameplay, while doing some things well, just didn’t quite feel right.

Let me preface what comes next with this:  I am a huge Halo fan.  I try not to let any sort of favorable bias I may have towards one of my favorite franchises cloud my objective judgment when picking apart the issues.

With that said, Halo 4 blew me away.

As soon as I was controlling Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, I knew they’d done it.  Everything looked and sounded amazing.  Graphics were stunning.  The sound effects quite remarkable – they’d totally revisited how everything should sound in the Halo universe.

But even beyond that, it felt amazing.  I couldn’t describe it any other way – no game I had ever played felt so authentic.

I had read in reviews how it really felt like you were controlling a bio-modified super-soldier in a hulking suit of armor, but I didn’t realize how much it felt like it until playing. 

Images and even video do no justice to the authentic feel you get
as you play Halo 4.

The story, too, was clearly a big focal point in 343i’s development.  Microsoft has done well to extend this transmedia story through two new novel trilogies, both which point directly to this game.  It’s no small wonder that this, unlike Reach, would have to be right on point as far as story goes.

And it was well done, fleshing out Master Chief and Cortana like we had never seen before (in one of the games). 

My only serious campaign story gripe (aside from the number of missions, which has been in steady decline since Halo 2's peak) requires I look at the game through someone else’s eyes.  Having read all the books, the background for many of the things happening in this game were clear to me.  Had I not read them though, I can see ample cause for confusion.  Many things were not explained well enough for someone who may only play the Halo games and not read any of the novels.

Multiplayer gets a big gold star from me as well.  I wasn’t a huge fan of Reach’s multiplayer.  I liked some of the game modes, but for some reason, it never felt as good as Halo 2 or Halo 3 felt. This feels again like I’m playing a Halo game.  So much of it feels like Halo 3 to me.

But the unlockable abilities and weapons had me worried.  In Reach, everything you earned was purely cosmetic.  I liked how they still wanted to keep multiplayer on a level playing field.  I have always championed that Halo multiplayer differed from others in that it’s so much more balanced, and doesn’t reward players by providing additional skills or weapons because they play more.  I was skeptical of Halo 4’s unlockable abilities and weapons, but they did not take much at all to unlock, meaning there is still no serious gap between newcomers and veterans, so that skill is once again the deciding factor.

Multiplayer feels so right again, especially on Ragnarok,
the remake of Halo 3's Valhalla map.

What did bother me about unlockables, though, was the emblems.  As far back as Halo 2, I’ve used a unique emblem as an identifier.  Now, all emblems are not available immediately – they have to be unlocked.  What results is a constant changing of emblems, which to me just looks like a brand always changing itself.   Then again, we don’t see them immediately on the battlefield like we used to, so it’s not like they’re as conspicuous as before when they were used to identify our teammates.  The unfortunate replacement for battlefield recognition has become the callsign, which has unfortunately regressed to half of my team going by YOLO and the other half as NOOB.

Spartan Ops, a new episodic game mode, was a bit of a let down for me.  If you’re playing alone, it’s not really worth it.  These are designed to be co-op, and you really feel like you miss something if you play it alone.  The story that’s connecting all of the episodes, and connecting it back to the main story, just doesn’t have the same draw to me as the single player did, especially as the missions all start to feel somewhat the same.  I believe the plan is for 343i to start charging for additional episodes as they’re produced, so we’ll see how much people will pay for more, or if they’re content with co-op fun and don’t care about where the story goes.

Bring your friends for Spartan Ops.  Otherwise it's just not really worth it.

With all of these, though, Halo 4 can be exceedingly frustrating.  But that’s not a bad thing here.  Most of my frustration came with how difficult the game could be at times, especially on Legendary difficulty.  It’s the right kind of frustration – the challenge.  The challenge made it so much better once you finally made it through that awful stretch that had made you feel as if you were in your own personal version of Groundhog Day.

It’s not to say Halo 4 is not without its faults and blunders.  For all its splendor, there are a couple serious polish issues. 

Vehicle explosions really get me.  I love seeing all the bits and pieces go flying.  Except they’re not there in this game.   In one particular scene where a ship blows up (let’s not discuss how convenient it was that disabling its power core meant it would drift slowly away until you’re out of the explosion’s radius), it’s as if they copied George Lucas’s approach to the Death Star explosion – HUGE explosion, nothing left.  Just lost that authenticity feel for a few moments when this happened.  Same thing when you blow up any Phantom.

Lip syncing seemed to be a terrible issue, and I’m assuming they just couldn’t get it right and eventually gave up on it.  Which is too bad, because the facial animations and mouth animations are incredible.  Some scenes it seemed spot on, and look amazing with how the mouths fit the words, and then suddenly in others it was so terribly off that the fourth wall was broken.  I suddenly remembered that this is a coded piece of software I’m interacting with, and there are problems.

Incredible cut scenes.  The facial animations were amazing.  Unfortunate issues every now and then with the sound syncing to the visuals.

Maybe some of the cosmetic issues are a sign of the Xbox 360’s age – it can’t handle the full scope of these games coming out seven years after it was created.  Some things may have to be sacrificed, and it’s possibly some of the smaller cosmetic things that get pulled first.

I would also talk about Forge mode, but there's not much to say.  It's very much like it was in Reach.  The only issue I have with it is the size of the open maps to build on - they're much smaller than the Forge world was in Reach.  However, I get the feeling this is an Xbox limitation again, so I can't put too much fault here, especially since 343i seemed to manage it pretty well.

Score: 1 Flying Controller

Yes, I gave it only one controller.  Yes, I’m a Halo fan.  But this game did everything it sought to accomplish, and did it well.  The harder difficulties in campaign mode are the right kind of frustrating, multiplayer doesn’t have any maddening imbalance to it, and Spartan Ops is a fun third option to pass the time with friends.  When the only really frustrating things are some minor cosmetic issues that take a nitpicking, critical eye to really find fault in, then you’ve done it right.

Well done, 343i, on your first Halo game.  I'm looking forward to more.

(The one controller is really for the lack of background provided at many key moments in the story.  And for the time I threw my controller for the RIGHT reasons.  If a game truly has so little to frustrate you that it deserves zero controllers, it probably wasn't trying to do much to begin with, and more than likely doesn't merit much play time or conversation.)

Assassin's Creed III

I want it back.  The money would be nice, but I’d prefer the time.  However, it seems Ubisoft can’t spare any, as they somehow, as it is so painstakingly clear, need to spend more time on a game they spent nearly three years developing.

It feels rushed.  It feels lazy.  It feels…poorly planned.  It’s as if they didn’t have time to get everything right, didn’t necessarily want to get everything right (perhaps due to being rushed), and didn’t have a cohesive plan to make it all fit together.

Much like I did for NCAA 13, I started out making a list of every cringe-worthy fault I came across in this game.

I eventually gave up.  The list became too long.

But let me say I applaud Ubisoft for its ambition.  Assassin’s Creed III is, in my humble opinion, one of the most ambitious games to date.  It does so much, and much of it was done quite well.

The presentation is great.  From the opening, we get the sense that this is a spectacularly epic story, grand in scale.  Through the use of the Animus, a technology in the game that allows users to relive the memories of their ancestors (the science in the game’s lore postures that memories are hereditary and passed down through DNA), we get to see the American Revolution, and all its key players, up close.  How exciting!  And, finally, we’re about to reach the conclusion of this story arc that’s been playing across three five games (and a thousand years almost), prophesying the end-of-the-world scenario that we’re racing to uncover the secrets to stop it.

Getting into the gameplay, there have been some major changes.  Combat at first was a bit tricky to grasp, but after a couple minutes of screwing it up in the opening missions, I was glad to have these changes.  It’s more fluid.  Counter moves are more seamless and fluid, and can even be interrupted (to which you can counter the interruptions if you’re quick enough).  Free running was generally better, especially with the added addition of running through the trees in the Frontier.  The rope dart? Great addition, just wished it had better combo kills while using in combat.

Every time I used the rope dart, I wanted to channel Scorpion and yell "Get over here!"

There were many small things, showing some incredible attention to detail, that I had to applaud when I came across them.  The ability to pet a dog or play with a cat when you came across it.  The shadows moving with the sun and the moon, even while playing a mini game such as checkers or fanorona.  Deep foot prints/tracks in heavy snow as you wade through it up to your knees (and a change in your stride to match).  Small things like this made me say, “I’m glad someone thought to add that in.”

And the Desmond missions, I must say, were definitely the highlight of the game.  A nice change of pace, bringing you back to the present, where you got to utilize the skills you’d acquired through the bleeding effect (we’ll just forget, though, that this was a cause for concern in AC2, and now it’s not) against Abstergo guards and agents.

Desmond missions were possibly my favorite.
No Animus HUD gives a real immersion quality.

But then I started playing it more, and more seems to be the general problem with this game.

There’s so much in this game, so incredibly much, that I have, in just over a month, put in a little over 50 hours of game time, and am about 94% “synced,” meaning I’ve done just about everything, and a couple things will need to be re-done in order to meet optional objectives.

But most of it does not make sense.  From courier missions, to the Frontiersmen, to the Brawlers, to the Hunting Society, to delivery requests, to trading convoys, it’s all there without any context whatsoever.

Why am I suddenly the mailman? I’m not sure.  But I have these markers on my map that show I’m supposed to deliver mail to these people.

Who are these guys talking about strange sightings?  That’s cool if I stop and listen, but based on what they said, I suddenly know exactly where to find Bigfoot or a UFO, with them giving no clues.

Hunting? Hunting was actually a really cool addition to the game.  Too bad it wasn’t new – Red Dead Redemption did it amazingly well already, and much less frustrating.  I get wanting me to use bait and a snare to catch an animal, but only having it count if I did it in a location obscured by overgrowth or bushes? Ludicrous.

Hunting was great, except it wasn't revolutionary.
Really felt like I was John Marston again, right down
to skinning the animal.

Building the homestead offered a nice little side story to the main story, and allowed us to really get that “slice of life” of the common man during the revolution, but again, no context for most of these missions.  Just suddenly KNEW that this person would be perfect for the homestead.

And building the homestead and upgrading the facilities allowed you to unlock more ingredients and recipes.

Ingredients and recipes for what? For a trading system that made almost no sense.  Unlocking these allowed you to craft items that, aside from a small number of upgrades that were useful (twin holster, pouch upgrades), were entirely worthless.  Trading them via a convoy was a waste of time – you get hardly any money (even after doing all the liberation, fort, and naval missions to bring down risk and taxes).  Some items were just decoration, such as the “rewards” for collecting all of the almanac pages.  “Congrats on running around and collecting all of these floating pages! Now here’s a recipe that you’ll need to unlock the ingredients for so you can craft it and just have it sit as a worthless piece of junk in a room at your house.”  You could craft new weapons with some recipes, but they didn’t affect combat in any noticeable way.  “But hey,” you say, “you can now craft some of the items needed for those delivery requests!”  Great!  So let me spend a few hundred pounds to craft these items for a reward of a few hundred pounds and the chance to now check this utterly useless item off my utterly long to-do list that is this game.

So, the whole check-list of “missions” to do, seemingly unconnected except that they’re all involved in earning ingredients and recipes for things that need these items so you can just check them off, is a huge part of the side missions, and doesn’t make much sense.  There’s also naval combat, which, on its own, was a delightfully refreshing game mode to play.  But it does not belong in this game.  It’s one of those super-convenient things you come across in a story that makes you groan.  “Oh, OF COURSE he also has a ship.”  But then there are suddenly all these naval missions, which most of them are to help your trade routes for the items you can craft from the ingredients and recipes you can unlock.  The trade routes aren’t worth the money.  So why do these missions? To check them off.  And they’re completely unconnected and have no effect on the main story at hand.  So completely unconnected that I didn’t do a single one until after the main story was finished and didn’t feel like I had missed out on a single thing.  But, as one dev probably said, “This is a really cool game mode.  Let’s add it in.”

Naval missions were a fun distraction, but didn't really fit in the game,
and got you nothing of value.

Hell, even the Assassin missions you send your recruits on were pretty much an afterthought.  You get additional items for selling or crafting and some XP for your recruit.

If you are able to get past the seemingly jumbled, incohesive mash of mini-quests and game modes stuck together to constitute the rest of the game outside of the main story, showing no true overarching direction for this game, then the little things will really start to bug you.

Glitches happen.  But I’ve never had THIS MANY in one game.  Especially THIS MANY that are widely reported across the web and have not been patched within a month after release.  Issues with quests not recognizing optional objectives being met.  Quests not recognizing main objectives being met.  Some missions showing up on your map and then disappearing.  Missions not triggering when you click B to start it.   Always having a “Citizen Mission Item” notification pop up, despite there not being a new one.  Fast travel points not showing up on the map, thereby rendering them useless.

How about frozen animals?  Walking through walls/walls disappearing?  Raining inside?  Animations not syncing up?  Guns stuck to my arms?  How about the terrible, god-awful attempt at lip-syncing, both for cut scenes and in environment.  The list goes on and on.  Just feels like such a rushed game.

Half Connor, half deer.

Or a misprioritized one.  One where too much time was spent on putting in game modes that don’t connect or even add anything to the game except busy work.

The enemy AI could have used some real help.  You’d think three years after AC2 came out, we’d have some significant improvements.  Nope.  Nothing of the like.  I can kill a guard at a heavily-defended fort, where guards are on high alert, but when another guard discovers the body, nothing changes.  It’s as if it didn’t happen.  Nobody’s more suspicious.  Guard routes don’t modify to a changed scenario.  Meanwhile I’m hanging out two feet from this guard, watching this, and he doesn’t bother to look over the edge of the dock.  If I do happen to pop up and alert everyone, well, I can just run away, and they’ll go back to normal, not expecting that I might come back.

Or, when attacking a convoy, if I sit back and pull the last guy back with a rope dart, the rest of the convoy will stop and sit there, waiting for me to finish the rope dart maneuver, but then will continue on as if nothing happened.

It was terribly easy to play through, knowing how the AI would respond to things.    In fact, boringly easy.  You can just wait them out if you messed up.  Or just kill everyone in an all out melee, which didn’t feel as “Assassiny.”  (And let’s not get into the issue that your enemies are now using guns, missing you most of the time, but still occasionally hitting you, yet providing no serious damage at all.) Either way, the AI was never going to be an issue, because your capabilities from a player’s perspective have improved, but the AI’s have not.

Other things that made me sigh or left me so frustrated with the game I wanted to throw my controller below.  This list is not so much exhaustive as just ones that I had started making the list before I got tired of making it.

-       Lack of explanation/unclear explanation on many objectives, especially optional ones, made it extremely tough to figure out many of them.  Sometimes they didn’t really present themselves before you failed them.

-       Limiting the number of something, say it’s limiting allied deaths to two, should mean that no more than two can die, not no more than one can die.

-       Cut scenes not fitting the time of day.  If you’re going to integreate time of day to guard changes and the like, then don’t have missions available except certain times of day if you’re not going to allow the cut scenes to fit appropriately.

-       Disappearing NPCs.  Yep, they would just disappear as you approached.  Enemies and non-combatants alike.  Other times they would just appear right in front of you as well.

-       Terrible draw distance.  The limits of this game and this console were really being pushed here.  Or it may have just been the engine, because I felt Skyrim had a much better draw distance, with graphics not far off from it.

-       THE ORPHANED KIDS! SHUT UP! (And the animation models basically had them looking like smaller adults, not actual kids.)

-       Dying your outfits.  1) You got no preview of what it would look like before you spent your money.  2) Cut scenes would not reflect these changes, though they would reflect changes if you had on a completely different outfit.

-       The menus are horribly laid out, confusing, and impossible to do anything quickly, whether it be messages in the wrong order (should be newest first), the crafting menu in possibly the least efficient way of doing that,  or the Assassins menu within a menu to get to the missions.

-       Cool to have doors and windows open that I can run through in a chase, but why, when I’m not running or being chased, does it make me automatically running through those?

-       Hunting quick time events.

-       If you completel your objective, but you’re in the middle of fighting 10 guys, it doesn’t matter.  Those 10 guys will just disappear.
-   Viewpoints.  Connor stands on practically nothing.  Al-tair and Ezio tended to have a bit more to stand on when surveying the land.  This is ridiculous.

AND HOW THE HELL DO YOU GET THE DATE WRONG FOR THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE!?!?!?!?!?

No, really, how?
That date is when Washington was made commander in chief of the Continental Army,
something that happened in an earlier segment of the game.

And if you, somehow, can make it through this game without being so frustrated at all of these smaller oversights that clearly point to a lack of time, money, or pride in worksmanship, or you felt you had to overlook it because you needed to see where this story goes, and you’re willing to deal with a Connor character that isn’t nearly as likeable as Ezio was, well, you make it to the end.

An anticlimactic end.

For a game so ambitious, it tried to do too much and fell short, unable to fit all of the disparate pieces together.

Score: 4.5 Flying Controllers

I give Assassin’s Creed 4.5 flying controllers.  Do not get into this game if you haven’t played the series from the beginning.  And only play it for the main story – no need to waste your time on the rest, as it adds nothing, and most of it is extremely frustrating and keeps you asking "why?" constantly.  I still want my time back.